One of the things i like to do, when i have some extra money (HA!) or just the overwhelming urge to hear new music, is browse through record stores. I live for that. I especially like to wander around the Tower Records near Lenox Mall in Atlanta, listening to the wide variety of CD's they have at their listening stations. I have discovered some great stuff this way.

Young American Primitive is one of those discoveries. Back in 1994 i picked up an electronica compliation called Trancefusion 2 on a whim -- it all sounded good when i skipped through the tracks at Tower's listening station. Taking the CD home and plugging it into my stereo i discovered that there was an unbelievably cool dance track with vaguely Japanese drumming called These Waves by Young American Primitive. The song literally bowled me over.

And it still does now, 7 years later. You see, recently i was pouring through the "bargin bin" at a local record/book store, and i found a copy of the Young American Primitive album for $1!!!! I snatched it up, and it is as good as that one song led me to believe. I have been listening to this disc a lot in the past three months, which is one of the reasons i decided to write a review of it.

The other reason is that there is almost NO information about this artist on the Internet. CDNow, apparently, doesn't even have Young American Primitive in their database. The only information that i was able to find was at All Music, and even there, all i got was a brief discography.

This saddens me, because this is an excellent example of early 90's trance techno. The music swells and swirls around sampled beats that remind me of the Japanese drumming in the movie Akira. It's awesome music to drive around to, play loud while cleaning your apartment, sit and chat with friends, or just sit and read to. It's not exactly challenging (what trance music is?), and the beat is consistent over the 70 minutes of the disc (which to some people spells "monotony"), but it's all really nicely done. And, to appeal to the young geek in all of us, the songs feature samples from B sci-fi films. The kind you stayed up late watching on VHF stations when you were 12.

So what happened? According to All Music he (apparently there is one person in this act) made this album and released a bevy of tracks on electonica compilations in the mid 90's. There was a second album on Geffen in 1998, apparently deleted since the Geffen website has no information on it at all. It seems as if Young American Primitive released one great trance album and then faded into obscurity.

Oh well. That sort of thing happens all of the time i guess. The good news that i discovered from all of my online research is that there are a dozen or so tracks on compilations that i can now look for when pouring through used bins. There is a single too. So my quest for more music by this artist can continue.

However, well, i am a Minion with a mission, beside Brendan's mind-contol gig. And that mission is to tell other people about the music i love. Everything i have heard from Young American Primitive (this album and one odd compilation track) is excellent. If you like trance music and come across anything by him i recommend snapping it up. Trust me -- fans of Orbital, Sabres Of Paradise, Tranquility Bass, etc. will not regret it one whit.

And if you have any idea what Young American Primitive is doing these days, drop me a line. I want to know what happened.